2021-22 Tigers Hot Stove League

[Motor City Sonics]

1 hour ago, Tigermojo said:

We're too polite to allow our money to be worth more. Sorry.

Don't you mean Soorry ?

[Longgone]

37 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

...........crickets......................

Comatose crickets

[Tiger337]

FanGraphs hates the Tigers.  74-88, last place in AL Central.  

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

[gehringer_2]

35 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

FanGraphs hates the Tigers.  74-88, last place in AL Central.  

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

seems odd. They played the last 120 games at 7 over 500 and in the main the team is at a point where most players are still improving toward their peak years and they have overall made more additions than they have had losses, so why would you assume they would be any worse than the last 2/3 of last season? Of course with any team the pitching could take a huge step back, but that is no more or less likely for the Tigers than any other team.

Edited March 15, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

38 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

FanGraphs hates the Tigers.  74-88, last place in AL Central.  

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

It does say we have the toughest schedule. Lets shock the world! Or at least the AL central

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

seems odd. They played the last 120 games at 7 over 500 and in the main the team is at a point where most players are still improving toward their peak years and they have overall made more additions than they have had losses, so why would you assume they would be any worse than the last 2/3 of last season? Of course with any team the pitching could take a huge step back, but that is no more likely for the Tigers than any other team.

All the projections have them playing below  .500.  It's a function of having a young team with a lot of question marks.  Lots of potential, not a lot of certainty.  What they did in their last 120 games last year is not part of the algorithm.  Beware of the plexiglasss principle!  What matters is what they are expected to do in 2022.  I wouldn't look at the 74-88 record though.  I would look at each player's individual projection and see where I think they can be better.  

Edited March 15, 2022 by Tiger337

[SoCalTiger]

Best we add some MLB pitching depth. It's like we built the house and still haven't planted the grass. Don't need to but it sure looks better.

[Sports_Freak]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

FanGraphs hates the Tigers.  74-88, last place in AL Central.  

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

I would bet your last dollar that they'll finish over .500. 😁😁

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

What they did in their last 120 games last year is not part of the algorithm.

which is good example of analysis losing the forest for the trees.

I'm more interested in trends. The Tiger team aggregates are skewed by last April, but a human factors approach argues that that was more likely the anomaly. But we'll see!

Edited March 15, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

which is good example of analysis losing the forest for the trees.

And what do you call throwing out the first 40 games?  Just looking at a favorable stretch of 120 games and ignoring 40 unfavorable  games will cause bias.  I would much rather look at all the games, plus games from previous years.    

[gehringer_2]

13 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

And what do you call throwing out the first 40 games?  Just looking at a favorable stretch of 120 games and ignoring 40 unfavorable  games will cause bias.  I would much rather look at all the games, plus games from previous years.    

You can look at it that way, but teams and players are not constant unchanging populations being sampled, they evolve. What they did recently is always more important than what they did in the past. The aggregate average of the data that form a trend is not best unbiased predictor of the future value if the trend is real. Of course picking the time interval to look back before what you are looking at is no longer what is (or isn't) is always tricky in human endeavor.

But we do this all the time. Take a number like K rate - we don't look at a players whole career to estimate his immediate K rate, that normally stabilizes after only a couple hundred AB. What happened before that was for all intents and purposes a different player. So the argument is not really a fundamental one, it's just a matter of picking the timescales for any given type of data. How much a season captures the nature of a team? 12months or 162 is an arbitrary number, there is no fundamental reason to believe that is the best interval over which to base team projections. It's just the most obvious one...

Edited March 15, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

10 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

which is good example of analysis losing the forest for the trees.

I'm more interested in trends. The Tiger team aggregates are skewed by last April, but a human factors approach argues that that was more likely the anomaly. But we'll see!

The projections do include individual player statistics from those 120 games.  They just don't throw out the first 40 games.  What human factors are you considering that wouldn't be picked up by stats?  Personally, I think they played over their heads the last 120 games. They had a mediocre bullpen that hardly blew any games.  I think there was some luck involved there.  The first 40 games were flukey too because every hitter  was slumping at the same time.  A lot of people give credit to Hinch for the improvement, but wasn't he also the manager at the beginning of the season?     

I think they'll do better than 74 wins, by the way. I just don't think the improved record at the end of the season should be used to pump up a projection.  

[Sports_Freak]

7 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

The projections do include individual player statistics from those 120 games.  They just don't throw out the first 40 games.  What human factors are you considering that wouldn't be picked up by stats?  Personally, I think they played over their heads the last 120 games. They had a mediocre bullpen that hardly blew any games.  I think there was some luck involved there.  The first 40 games were flukey too because every hitter  was slumping at the same time.  A lot of people give credit to Hinch for the improvement, but wasn't he also the manager at the beginning of the season?     

I think they'll do better than 74 wins, by the way. I just don't think the improved record at the end of the season should be used to pump up a projection.  

90-72. Win the division. 

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

You can look at it that way, but teams and players are not constants, they evolve. What they did recently is always more important than what they did in the past. The aggregate average of the data that form a trend is not best unbiased predictor of the future value if the trend is real. Of course picking the time interval to look back before what you are looking at is no longer what is is always tricky in human endeavor.

 

It is not true that what players did recently is always more important than what they did in the past. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.  In most cases, I'd rather take the bigger sample size.  Remember Brennan Boesch for example?    I want to look at a players entire career. not just the part of his career when he was good.  I will say though that projections are only a baseline.  You should look at the individual projections for each player and see which ones look too low.  Then you can adjust the aggregate accordingly.   I don't see how focusing on 120 games will give you a better projection.       

[Tigeraholic1]

With expanded playoffs what do we think the wins to get in are now? 

[Tiger337]

Just now, Sports_Freak said:

90-72. Win the division. 

I think that is possible if several of the young players break out.  I just wouldn't project it.    I think they'll be around .500 with a lot of interesting young players going hot and cold.  It should be a fun season.  

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

With expanded playoffs what do we think the wins to get in are now? 

Last year, it would have been 91 games in the AL, but I think that was an anomaly.  I think around 86 wins gives a team a good shot.  

Edit: This article says 87 wins on average: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/how-many-wins-will-it-take-to-make-expanded-playoffs/

Edited March 15, 2022 by Tiger337

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

 

It is not true that what players did recently is always more important than what they did in the past. 

doesn't this deny reality though? Almost every player's career performance goes though an arc. They come up, improve, plateau and then fall off. At any point in their career applying the basic career arc effect is going to be a better predictor of the immediate future than the flat average of his whole previous career. Of course to take the most ridiculous example, what do Cabrera's career numbers tell us about what he is likely to do this year? Not much I'm afraid. So we weight the recent past heavier all the time - it's always just a matter of how much - and that's always a fair thing be working toward better definition.

Edited March 15, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

8 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

doesn't this deny reality though? Almost every player's career performance goes though an arc. They come up, improve, plateau and then fall off. At any point in their career applying the basic career arc effect is going to be a better predictor of the immediate future than the flat average of his whole previous career. Of course to take the most ridiculous example, what do Cabrera's career numbers tell us about what he is likely to do this year? Not much I'm afraid. So we weight the recent past heavier all the time.

Not every 120 game stretch is indicative of a new level of performance though.  Players go hot and cold all the time. 

The projections do assume a career arc where players get better or worse at a certain age.  The projections would not assume that Cabrera will reach his career average in 2022.  They would assume that he will perform like a former great player who is now 39.  

I think where the projections can go wrong is with young players.  There isn't enough data to know  what their careers will look like or how quickly they will break out.  The Tigers have a lot of young players which give them uncertainty, but also a lot of opportunity for improvement.   

 

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Tiger337

[Tigeraholic1]

Love this, good guys.

 

 

 

[Sports_Freak]

6 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I think that is possible if several of the young players break out.  I just wouldn't project it.    I think they'll be around .500 with a lot of interesting young players going hot and cold.  It should be a fun season.  

I've read that championship teams are built by being strong up the middle. Look at the upgrades we made at catcher and SS. And if Greene is a ROY candidate, we're going to be very, very good. Then we have the young pitchers with a years experience under their belts. So I don't understand people judging us by our record last year, especially the first 6 weeks when Hinch was learning what his players were capable of. The Tigers are a team on the rise and it shouldn't surprise any "experts" when we make the playoffs.

[gehringer_2]

Just now, Tiger337 said:

Not every 120 game stretch is indicative of a new level of performance though.  Players go hot and cold all the time. 

right, and even worse, when you are looking at teams you are looking at guys going in and out of injury states and players coming in and out the roster so you are faced with even defining whether for a given club the April and August teams can even be considered the same. 

[Tiger337]

 

6 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I've read that championship teams are built by being strong up the middle. Look at the upgrades we made at catcher and SS. And if Greene is a ROY candidate, we're going to be very, very good. Then we have the young pitchers with a years experience under their belts. So I don't understand people judging us by our record last year, especially the first 6 weeks when Hinch was learning what his players were capable of. The Tigers are a team on the rise and it shouldn't surprise any "experts" when we make the playoffs.

Who is judging them by their record last year?

[Tiger337]

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

right, and even worse, when you are looking at teams you are looking at guys going in and out of injury states and players coming in and out the roster so you are faced with even defining whether for a given club the April and August teams can even be considered the same. 

And no person nor algorithm can predict injuries especially to pitchers.  

[Motor City Sonics]

What would it take to get Frankie Montas?    I would trade them Steven Moya, Shannon Penn and Nate Cornejo RIGHT NOW